Yes, yes, we know our youngest son is too young for it, but, well, you know, he likes it. Loves it, actually. That’s Ben 10 I’m talking about. The Tweenage boy who with a tap of a device on his wrist can transform into an array of goodie monsters to fight off the baddie monsters he encounters pretty much every day in the suburbs. As you do.

So for his fourth birthday today, it was a no-brainer to buy him some Ben 10 action figures and a Ben 10 bike, which we ordered online for delivery on Saturday. As the meerkats say: ‘Seemples!’

Famous last words.

When the bike duly arrived, it arrived in a box. In pieces. Why oh why they can’t just send you an assembled bicycle, ready to sit astride and ride is beyond me, but that’s the way of the modern world. Why do something simple when you can make it very, very complicated.

However, every challenge presents an opportunity, and this was my opportunity to show that I can do much more than iron a shirt in 26 seconds and rustle up a roast duck for Sunday lunch.

Fetch my spanners, love, I’m going in!

Two hours, three pints of sweat and four rows of the Why-Didn’t-You-Read-The-Instructions-Before-You-Started variety (in response to my ‘How-Hard-Can-It-Be-It’s-A-Kid’s-Bike assertion), I finally held my little boy’s present triumphantly aloft.

Me, Real Dad! Grunt! Not (only) Housedad! Snarl!

Now I’ve got to teach the little sod how to ride the bloody thing.

He’d better be grateful, or he might find a monster of a different kind on his hands.